Income & Expenses For August 2015

Since 2014, I have been tracking my monthly income and expenses. You can see a breakdown of every penny I earn and spend. For perspective, this budget is for a household of two in a small US city. By documenting my journey, I aim to demonstrate the feasibility of saving a significant portion of your income and provide some ideas and inspirations for your own budget.

Below is my income and expenses for August 2015. You can see all my monthly budgets here. 

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	Aug 2015
Income
Wages	$8,422.47
Dividends	$1,079.32
Other Income	$154.30
Total Income	$9,656.09
Expense
Federal Tax	$305.56
Federal Tax Pmt/(Refund)
FICA-SS	$356.13
FICA-Medicare	$83.29
Rent	$450.00
Student loan repayment	$155.80
Cell phone	$17.86
Electric	$26.56
Other Expense	$36.79
Total Expense	$1,431.99
Ex-Tax Total Expense	$687.01
Surplus/(Deficit)	$8,224.10
Before Tax Saving Rate	85.17%
After Tax Saving Rate	92.29%

Income

Wages were typical this month. Dividend income this month was $1079.32, which covered my living expenses of $687.01. Here is a chart of my dividend income by month for the last 13 months:

Expense
Expenses were lower this month, from lower student loan interest rates and reduced electric usage, partially offset by increased in incidental other expense.

Savings
My after tax saving rate was 92.29% for the month of August, which exceeded my target of 90%. This marks 6 months in row with above 90% savings rate. Going forward, I expect to meet or exceed my 90% savings goal for the year.

How's your budget? Did you save as much as you wanted to? On track to meet your savings goals for the year? Thanks for reading.